Unrelenting

My pencil is heavy with caged words. I have imprisoned them, locked by laziness, jail-keeper named Forgetfulness.

Writing is a release thing, and a honing thing. One person once told me I write well, another that I write terribly. Eye of the beholder I guess.

And now, so many things burden the mind, like so many snowflakes in an avalanche. Maybe writing will ease. I would compare writing to a drug, since it can be addicting, it can be a release, it can be devastating. But writing can't heal. Only God can heal. I don't pray to writing. I pray to the God who invented writing and communicated clearest through written word.

But I am weighed and measured tonight. One truth keeps pounding in my head; mental anguish mirrored by the damage I do to those around me. That truth, I cannot escape it.

You hurt worst the ones you care about most.

I think I am just on the edge of learning this. Like the climber before Everest, I have a rough journey ahead. May my reward be the summit and not the frostbitten death.

I suppose those with wives know this better than those with girlfriends only. Which is why I think I'm only just now seeing this truth. I only have a girlfriend right now, and already I injure her in ways I mourn deeply. She is better than I, and I pray that she doesn't figure out that she deserves someone far better.
And this, this damage inflicted on the dearest objects, it is a glimpse of what I do to God.

I run His name through the mud I writhe in. And He forgives. I praise with lips and curse with heart. And He forgives. I injure and attack and lie and cheat on Him again and again. And He forgives.

Because He, too, hurt worst the One He cared about most.

Have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love;
According to your great compassion
Blot out my transgression.
Create in me a clean heart, O God...